Hey, I wanna talk about V Martyn.
He's so, so human. In both the storytelling and the plot. Storytelling wise- The other characters have a plot and a backstory and an aim or goal. Martyn's just trying to live. He makes up a backstory to fit in, he lies about his name even. He's not a character to me. He feels like a person.
Let me rephrase. Watching Martyn's POV feels like when you read a book written in 1st person. It feels like he's reacting like a regular human would to vampires. He's reacting like the audience would.
The audience can relate more to this guy than any of the others. I love the other POVs but none of the audience (I hope) are mass killers (whether by war, mind control or metal break), none of us are actually immortal, or monster hunters. We're just normal humans. And so is v Martyn.
He fully doesn't believe in vampires (of course they don't exist). But he sees weird stuff happening so he investigates, which is so human. He sees people messing with the beacon and confronts them ( in an aggressive manner, but what human doesn't get angry when they're scared).
He is told a secret in a calm manner, in a place where he can run away if he needs (and he does back up and then return when Cleo remains calm - go watch ep 4 again) and he matches that energy.
He is told a secret in a dark hole he can't run from, in a manner that was scary (I'm sorry Apo but you rolled a nat 1 on that talk) and runs to get help. And if you, random human, were genuinely confronted with a vampire, in those circumstances, I guarantee you would not do any different!
And even with all this fear, when Scott walks into town to manipulate, (sorry, talk) he is willing to try - he doesn't fight, he asks them to stop (well stahp). He also reacts poorly to one of the other 'safe' humans asking to turn. Fear of losing a friend, but willingness to live and let live.
V Martyn is a bit of a hypocrite - again who isn't? In real life even the most principled people will be hypocritical sometimes. And let's be honest the average human really follows the adage 'do what I say not what I do'.
V Martyn for the last 3 episodes is a scared human, trying to protect the people who will protect him, and being, reasonably, aggressive towards people who have said they wish to kill him. He is not (like Ren) unwilling to live and let live. He is however, right, that until the very end (when Owen Pyro and Avid were dead, and so Scott changed tactics) the only chance of him staying human - was the vampires dying. The vampires, for all that most of them said they wanted peace, the structure of Owen being one of the de facto leaders, would never have allowed for peace.
Martyn is a very human character and displays so much humanity - even in his last moments helping reassure a friend. So human that the narrative is ruined by him no longer being one (cc Martyn is a storyteller - he knew what the plot demanded). So he died as he lived. The most human person in Oakhurst.
